


No Light, No Light

by tiger_moran



Series: Lyric [17]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Don't copy to another site, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jealousy, Longing, M/M, Some angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27508510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiger_moran/pseuds/tiger_moran
Summary: Seventeenth in a collection of standalone but also interconnected Moriarty and Moran fics inspired by lyrics from songs, particularly pop/rock songs.
Relationships: Sebastian Moran/James Moriarty, Sebastian Moran/Ronald Adair
Series: Lyric [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1992709
Kudos: 7





	No Light, No Light

**Author's Note:**

> Florence + the Machine - No Light, No Light
> 
> No light, no light  
> In your bright blue eyes  
> I never knew daylight could be so violent  
> A revelation in the light of day  
> You can't choose what stays and what fades away  
> And I'd do anything to make you stay  
> No light, no light  
> Tell me what you want me to say
> 
> Through the crowd I was crying out and  
> In your place there were a thousand other faces  
> I was disappearing in plain sight  
> Heaven help me, I need to make it right

He had come back to London at last, but not home. Moriarty still has places to go, money stashed away here and there – he is intelligent enough to have arranged that, just not intelligent enough to realise what price he would end up paying for his absurd feud with Holmes; what toll it would take not only on him, but also on Moran.

_Sebastian._

He thought, truly, for a time that Moran believing him dead was for the best; that after so long he must have moved on, finished his grieving and perhaps even found someone else. Best to leave him be; best not to drag open old wounds once more.

The light hurts the Professor's eyes at times now, thus he must often wear the glasses with the smoked lenses during daylight, and the cool or damp weather makes him ache all over. He lives though, and his mind seems more or less intact, and that is something. What aches the most though is the sense of emptiness he still feels – he who spent many years enjoying his solitude, who did not have or want or need friends. He has changed; Moran has changed him, and now Moran is not here.

He first sees the Colonel again in the street, by chance and far away, and Moran doesn't see him. The Colonel's head is bowed and he walks hunched up, hands in his pockets, his face shadowed by the brim of his hat. Even so, when Moriarty ducks into an alleyway, concealing himself behind a stack of boxes, and lets Moran walk past him, he sees Moran's face, and he looks strangely lifeless behind those blue eyes.

Pain stabs him through his once-broken left leg, a lightning bolt of it searing through the nerves, and Moriarty grimaces, bending over, rubbing his thigh to try to ease the agony. When he straightens up again Moran is gone.

The second time Moriarty sees Moran again he is in a cab and it is the merest glimpse only he gets of his former lover as the cab drives past.

The third time he sees him, in late March, Moran is leaving the Bagatelle club, a younger man by his side. So he is gambling again then, Moriarty realises, and he wants to run to Moran, but he can't; he wants to tell him... everything, but he cannot. He has never thought himself guilty of cowardice before – many other things, yes, but not that. But now he realises... he is terrified of what Moran may do when he sees him again, how he may react when he finds out the Professor has been alive all this time; that his grief has been for nothing.

He watches Moran get into a brougham with this young man and still he does nothing, cursing himself as he stands there across the street, hands clasped around the handle of his walking cane, breathing hard through his nose as he tries to bite back the pain in his leg.

_Coward, coward, coward._

The fourth time, Moran is with that young man again, the blonde and blue-eyed almost angelic looking man, and that man clearly adores the Colonel, although Moran seems... distracted? He all but pushes the man aside when he tries to clasp Moran's arm, and the Professor wonders, about the nature of his once-lover's relationship with this youngster.

_Coward._

Moran walks on, and the younger man practically runs after him, but Moran pushes him aside once again, and his face is stony, impassive, but his jaw is clenched and Moriarty knows then, knows that Moran has bedded this young man, and that realisation, it should not hurt so, especially when Moriarty is sure that Moran cannot actually love this other man, can he? _Can_ he? But it does still hurt; it hits him right in the heart, and he curses himself for that, for how irrational this is, and he curses himself as a coward once more, for being too afraid to simply go to Moran, but now there are those further complications, that blue-eyed boy and his clear infatuation with the Colonel, and that Moran has lain with him.

Moriarty sits, almost falling in his haste, paying little attention to what he is actually sitting on – a rather rotten packing case, as it turns out. How many times, he wonders, has Moran bedded that man? His hand clenches, though his fingers are stiff, and it hurts immensely but better that than that feeling in his chest, that feeling of being wounded to his core.

And then they are right there, so close by, the younger man still pursuing Moran, and if only Moran had turned his head to the left instead of the right, if he only looked into the shade of the nearby building instead of turning the other way to glare at the other man, he might have locked eyes with the Professor there and then.

But he doesn't.

“Sebastian!” the other man calls. “Don't you dare walk away from me!”

But Moran only glowers at him as he snarls out, “Leave me alone, Ronald!” And then he is gone, and the younger man alone remains, standing there with not hurt now but fury on his face.

Neither of them knows they have been watched by a man in the shadows.

And soon London is abuzz with the story of the murder of Ronald Adair, but Moran is safe, Moriarty thinks; nobody suspects him; the incident is quite a mystery indeed, but now that silly but surprisingly dangerous young man is out of the way perhaps, perhaps... perhaps he might soon gather his courage together to face Moran again.

Tonight, he thinks. I must see him tonight. He must risk Moran's anger, Moran's rejection even, to tell him the truth; tell him that he never meant to leave him for all this time; that while his decision to confront Holmes was a poor one indeed, it was beyond his control to return sooner – he was far too battered and broken for that, and... well, there are other reasons too, that he may speak of in time. For now he must rest, for he tires easily still, but, yes, tonight he will see Moran again.

But night comes and Moran is not there. The house, Moriarty's home once, is empty. “Where is he?” he demands of their housekeeper, being far too sharp with the woman, especially bearing in mind that she has just seen her employer seemingly rise up from the dead, but he needs to find Moran.

“I think he was going to the opera, sir,” she says.

And Moriarty wonders at that, why Moran would go to the opera tonight. Moran accompanied him there in the past but never seemed especially interested in it, only choosing to go since he liked to accompany the Professor.

Cursing the weakness of his own body, Moriarty searches for Moran still, and does not find him. At last when the pain is too intense to be ignored, Moriarty admits defeat. He doesn't know where Moran is and he cannot search any longer. Three years since he nearly died, and he has made a remarkable recovery, true, and it is also true that it is a miracle that he survived at all. In fact Moriarty has attempted to work out the exact series of events that needed to come together precisely in order for him to plunge into the Reichenbach Falls and not be dashed to pieces or crushed or drowned, or maybe all of those. Not quite a miracle after all, but the chances of his survival were so slim as to be practically non-existent according to his calculations. He should be glad then perhaps that three years on he has only a limp and his aches and pains and the sensitivity to light and the terrible headaches, along with the fact that he now tires very easily, and he _is_ fortunate, that he didn't simply break his neck or his back in the falls. But this does not help him summon the further energy necessary to find Moran.

Eventually, alone in his abode, he drifts off into an uneasy sleep, to dream of falling again.

The news, the next day, when it reaches Moriarty courtesy of a boy he has been paying to run various errands for him, is not good. The police made an arrest for the murder of Ronald Adair last night; the person they have arrested is Colonel Sebastian Moran.

Moriarty, in pain still, tired out from his fitful sleep, cursing the brightness of the new day, hurls his teacup at the wall, watching it shatter and spill its contents down the wallpaper. This done, his rage passes, flitting away like a bird, leaving a strange sense of calm behind, and he sits, and he thinks, and he plots.


End file.
